intothefrey.

Q. Do visual media work differntly to other platforms?

A. 

What is visual media?

Visual media surrounds us. It’s lecture slides, it’s charts, it’s logos, it’s diagrams, it’s the map your friend scrawls on a napkin when you ask for directions because you forgot your GPS enabled phone AND it’s the GPS on your smartphone when you remember it. In an age where we have an increasingly short attention span (as discussed earlier in the course) visual media is a tool that enables us to communicate information quickly using image based data. 

 One of the most interesting things about visual media is that it demonstrates the contemporary shift in publishing from assuming the audience to be passive consumers of a spectacle to realizing them to be active participants, interpreting and often reworking data to create meaning.

Climate change and the many issues that it creates is a complex and diverse topic. It demonstrates the trouble many scientists and organizations have communicating the meaning of large amounts of quantitative data to the public, a society who are increasingly used to getting their information in bite sized tweets.

The image of the polar bear clinging precariously to a melting piece of ice immediately communicates the big issues with global warming more effectively than the words surrounding it. The polar bear acts as a metonym. It, as a single piece of data, expresses the general trend of climate change data as a whole. Visual media, such as the polar bear, is able to rely on the audience’s ability to interpret; it shows rather than tells. The image doesn’t explain all the contributing factors of climate change in long wordy sentences, nor is it a news bulletin with a broadcaster talking to you about how you should feel and respond to global warming, it is a single piece of data, able to be interpreted and incite an emotive response.

Visual media negates the need for jargon and terminology specific to the type of data it is displaying. For example, the scientific language that is normally used to explain global warming and discuss its impacts, isolates the amount of reach text on climate change has. It normally has a niche audience that is capable of easily understanding it or having a desire to read it at all. Visual media breaks down this barrier and increases the accessibility and reach of the information.

On his infographics website Information is Beautiful, David McCandless sums up the advantages of visual media when he says:

“Visualizing information - facts, data, ideas, subjects, issues, statistics, questions - all with the minimum of words…  Designed information can help us understand the world, cut through the BS and reveal hidden connections, patterns and stories underneath. Or, failing that, it can just look cool!”

I think it is important to seriously reflect on his humourous suggestion about visual media’s ability to ‘just look cool.’ The immediate aestheic appeal of visual data is now more important than ever due to the over stimulated world we live in. I would not be inclined to sit and read a global warming debate, but the way that McCandless summarises it on his website appeals to me and the data is presented in an engaging way. This works in a completely different way to this.

Visual media is an essential tool used to communicate and engage with the masses. 

Heather and Stephen

I have been looking through old photo albums and it is giving me a such a sense of nostalgia for events and experiences that don’t belong to me.

I don’t think I will ever be as cool or as in love as my parents. 

And I don’t know anyone else who could get away with these hideous matching red tracksuit tops.

Spending time with them over my summer break has actually been really lovely.